What he doesn't say in the video is that this is a failed sauce. This is Hollandaise sauce allowed to ruin. Except with a LOT less butter, and on direct heat, on-and-off, as soon as you see the white change lift it off and stir the white into the liquid, set it down again and keep stirring, and then sour cream to stop the action and finish instead of lemon juice to start as with Hollandaise.

Scientifically it's a colloid. The egg yolk is emulsifier.

You see, the longer you cook scrambled egg then the more egg protein tightens its connections squeezes out water like a sponge to evaporate until they become dry and tough. By stirring in cold butter at the beginning then the eggs can stay wet. You can control it so that the egg thickens without curds forming, or allow them to form to whatever extent that you like. Ramsey is showing how to control the wetness, the curd formation, the richness with butter, and the flavor and slamming the brakes on cooking with cool crème fraîche (sour cream).

It's simple and masterful. And doing it this way leads directly to producing perfect Hollandaise because it shows at hand what's going on with both.

Hold off from salt until the end so it doesn't interfere. Salt makes egg go all wonky. And for your delicate tastes a few sprigs of torn or chopped tarragon is excellent, a light and bright near licorice flavor.

Imagine this with a teaspoon of mustard. Or shredded cheese. I prefer a harsh bite of jalapeño.

This photo was favorited on Flicker within minutes of posting it. I have no idea why. Maybe it was a woman fondly reminded of Obama showing off at the front of an airplane. Who knows?

11 comments:

I've seen Gordon Ramsey make eggs. He is right. Spanish and Italian fritatas are similar, cook the eggs slow to get that creamy moist consistency. Too high heat makes them dry (Omelettes only work because you have the dry shell with the moist creamy interior).

I like to do a fried egg with high heat to the pan before the egg is put in, then immediately lower it down while the egg fries.

I just did an internet search. It was written for the show. Apparently, the blues a-calling are the people who call into his radio show. They're all mixed up in the head. Frazier can give them some pat answers because he's got them pegged but there's nothing he can do to straighten them out.

Makes sense enough but, boy, was I wrong.

I assumed it was an old Jazz song (part of Frazier's character was that he had a sophisticated appreciation for Jazz standards such as "Isn't it Romantic") and that the singer was singing about himself fending off the blues (sadness) because he was all mixed up in the head over a girl. The "quite stylish" seemed to me like a bit of that Manhattan upscale, tuxedo-wearing stuff, like Bobby Short at the Café Carlyle.

Yeah, the "I got you pegged" part was unaccounted for, except I thought maybe he was saying that he knew she was messing with his head, maybe by playing hard-to-get. Still, having her pegged wasn't helping him out any.

I never gave it much thought, truth be told.

I kind of assumed the nonexistent Jazz standard was drawing from the same well as "I Can't Explain," which is probably yet another song that I misunderstand.

I don't listen to lyrics, generally, which is not at all the same thing as saying there aren't some Bob Dylan songs I like or that I think he's overrated or anything. I really don't know much about his work.

I watched that show when it was broadcast, and have been rewatching it on Netflix. Martin is the fish out of water character. No, wait, maybe that is Daphne.

David Hyde Pierce is a pretty good physical comedian. He was hired because he slightly resembled Kelsey Grammer. The contrast between those two and their blue collar father was attributed to how they were raised by their late mother.

But if you want to see some real acting, watch DHP pretend to find the character Daphne attractive - man, you can almost see him visualizing his husband when he does that.

The show is sometimes funny, mostly hackneyed, and to get my mind right I decided to start at the beginning and watch Cheers. That should give me 11 seasons of cheesy comedy before I have to consider watching Frasier again.

As a side note, I tried to guess the actors or actresses who called into the show based on their voices. I only occasionally got it right. Lots of commies, that's for sure.

Oh, right, the unseen character - that is an old dramatic trope, going back at least as far as the ancient Greek tragedians, then on up through Shakespeare, then into modern drama and comedy, such as Norm's wife Vera on Cheers, then Maris on Frasier.

Martin's wife is unseen due to being deceased. She is no more, has ceased to be, is bereft of life, she rests in peace, is singing in the bleedin' choir invisible, has shuffled off this mortal coil, etc.

You are good, dude. Once they stopped my heart on the operating table, and might I add, started it back up later, I have been unable to get depressed. Sad, sure, like over the loss of a pet or a human I cared for, but depression - meh, can't even get there.

However, let me be the first to wave off anyone thinking that being put on a heart-lung machine will fix what ails 'em. That's the long way around. And who knows, your mileage may vary.

But back to the mopping - I am thinking muriatic acid is something I should consider for cleaning the vinyl. Soap and water just ain't cuttin' it.

How did I reach this conclusion? I noticed that the spots where the animals threw up, once cleaned, were free of the top layer of ground in dirt. Hydrochloric acid to the rescue!